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2014 Board of Directors' nominationsUCAOANew Directors of the UCAOA Board are elected by you, the members, through an online process that culminates at the National Urgent Care Convention held March 17-20 in Las Vegas. For the 2014 election year, UCAOA has three open director positions:

Dr. Hicks has finished his first term and will be running as an incumbent.

Dr. Lamelas has finished his second term and will be rotating off the Board of Directors.

Dr. Dillahunty has finished his second term and will be rotating off the Board of Directors.

Nominations for the candidates for director positions may come from UCAOA members, and we encourage all of you to consider nominating an individual you believe would represent the urgent care industry well on UCAOA's Board of Directors. The nomination period is open now through Friday, Jan. 31. Click here for further details and to access the nomination form.

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MEETINGS & EDUCATION

Webinar: Just What the Doctor Ordered — Marketing Your Website More EffectivelyUCAOAJoin us at 1 p.m. (CST) Thursday, Jan. 23 for a live webinar presented by Chris Behan of Socius Marketing. During this one-hour event, Chris will present straightforward guidelines for how to create a stronger Web presence that brings more patients through your clinic's doors. Learn how to maximize your website's potential, decipher what online tactics will and won't work for your facility, and comprehend the nuances of why certain websites rank better than others. To learn more and to register, click here.

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Tuition discount for UCAOA's National Urgent Care Convention expires FridayUCAOADon’t miss UCAOA's 10th National Urgent Care Convention, held March 17-20 in Las Vegas. This year's educational program has been enhanced and expanded to offer even more clinical and practice management courses, and when you register by midnight (CST) Friday, Jan. 10, using promo code: 14Spring, you'll save $100 total on your tuition for Pre-Convention Courses and/or the Main Convention. Act now and register online.

Free community publicationsUCAOAMost every community has a variety of "free" newspapers distributed in restaurants, supermarkets, libraries and other places. In larger communities, papers may focus on the needs and interests of women, parents, athletes, outdoors enthusiasts, ethnic groups such as Asian-Americans, tourists, health enthusiasts and those seeking employment. Consider how community papers fit into your marketing mix. Promoting back-to-school physicals and immunizations? A parent-oriented publication could raise awareness. Promoting sports injury care or physical therapy? Consider an outdoors or running publication. Key is to reach an audience who has urgent care needs with awareness of your brand. In addition to advertising, these publications always need content — if you find one that's of interest, inquire about submitting an article on a topic that ultimately educates and leads consumers toward urgent care.

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JUCM

Now online in JUCMUCAOAUnderstanding the nature and course of sight-threatening complications and clues to their diagnosis is important for urgent care providers because eye conditions and complaints are very common in the urgent care setting. In this month's cover story—the first of a two-part series—Sarvotham Kini, MD, clearly defines the scope of urgent care for foreign bodies in the eye, corneal abrasion, red eye, scleritis and conjunctivitis. He also identifies the equipment and decision-making necessary for high-quality outcomes in patients with these conditions. To read "Management of Ocular Complaints in Urgent Care: Part 1," turn to page 9 JUCM online (or in print).

TheJournal of Urgent Care Medicine supports the evolution of urgent care medicine by creating content that addresses the clinical practice of urgent care medicine and the practice management challenges of keeping pace with an ever-changing healthcare marketplace. Are you an urgent care provider who would like to write for our journal? Send an email to editor@jucm.com for information on our author guidelines.

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PRODUCT SHOWCASES

MEMBERS IN THE NEWS

Urgent care centers timely alternative to hospital emergency roomsCherry Hill Courier-PostUrgent care centers — a quicker, often less expensive alternative to an ER — are popping up all over South Jersey. In Cherry Hill, for instance, you can travel from Haddonfield Road near the Garden State Park Plaza to Route 70 and Old Orchard Road and find three centers. There's Concentra near the old racetrack, Premier on Kings Highway and Cooper Urgent Care on Marlton Pike. A Google search shows nearly a dozen quick-stop healthcare facilities in the tri-county region.

Business Magazine honors Norwalk's Urgent Care of ConnecticutNorwalk Daily VoiceUrgent Care of Connecticut received a prestigious Optimas award from Workforce magazine, a business magazine serving human resources professionals since 1922. Optimas award winners are selected by the Workforce editorial staff based on tangible business results. Winners are recognized for identifying a critical issue within their organization and successfully implementing an HR solution that generates significant results.

MD Now readies for onslaught of obstructive sleep apnea examsPR Newswire via The Sacramento BeeMD Now Urgent Care announces its availability as a certified source for screening and testing of obstructive sleep apnea — now a required part of all DOT physical exams. With multiple urgent care centers located across Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties in Florida, and more on the way, MD Now Urgent Care Centers is addressing the growing need of commercial driver testing for sleep apnea disorders.
Additional resource: UCAOA's DOT FMCSA Medical Examiner Training Course held Monday, March 17, as a Pre-Convention at the National Urgent Care Convention

Health system acquires 'pioneering' urgent care centerPhiladelphia Business JournalOne of the Philadelphia region's first independent urgent care centers has become part of a regional health system. Pioneer Urgent Care in West Chester, Pa., has been acquired by Crozer-Keystone Health System. The center will retain its name. Its physicians will become members of the Crozer-Keystone Health Network.

Prime Urgent Care announces new urgent care services in Pearland, TexasPR Newswire via The Sacramento BeePrime Urgent Care announces its new urgent care services in Pearland, Texas. The center most recently began offering IV fluids to those 18 and older, a service available at many Prime Urgent Care facilities. IV fluids can be very important to those who live in the Texas heat and extreme humidity.

Urgent care center opens in West EndLong Island HeraldCityMD has opened a new urgent care center in New York's West End. This facility is much needed in a city that is still without a local hospital more than a year after Hurricane Sandy. CityMD located at 904 W. Beech St. will provide urgent care services to ill or injured patients. Though not the 9-1-1 ambulance-receiving facility that many residents have called for, many said that the office will fill a void in Long Beach by easing the burden on the fire department by taking in patients with non-critical injuries who would otherwise be transported to an emergency room.

5th CareSpot in Kansas City area opens in LeawoodPR NewswireThe fifth Kansas City-area CareSpot urgent care center in partnership with HCA Midwest Health System opened at 3500 West 95th Street, in Leawood, Kan. The center is a 3,200-square-foot, freestanding facility providing the same broad array of urgent care and occupational health services found at the four other area CareSpot centers found in Overland Park, Kansas City and Raytown.

Medical Associates opens new urgent care clinicClinton HeraldClinton, Iowa, residents now will have another option for medical care seven days a week. The new Medical Associates Urgent Care and Occupational Medicine Center opened recently at the corner of Manufacturing Drive and Valley West Drive. Plans for this 6,000-square-foot facility began to solidify in 2012, with work beginning in August. Medical Associates chief operating officer Thomas Moser is happy with the completion of the building.

Health law may hit midsize businesses hardestUSA TodayThe new year will bring tough new healthcare decisions for many businesses, especially those that are too small to easily absorb new costs and too big to think about dropping coverage, experts say. Federal regulators define small businesses for the purposes of the Affordable Care Act as those with 50 or fewer employees, so a midsize company by some definitions could be one 51 or 1,000 or more workers. A mandate for businesses with 50 or more employees to provide insurance to all full-time employees was delayed for a year. But businesses are already bracing for 2015.

Study finds Medicaid expansion drove up ER visitsAssociated Press via ABC NewsA new study has found that people enrolled recently in Medicaid went to the emergency room 40 percent more frequently than others, often seeking help for conditions that could be treated less expensively in a doctor's office or an urgent care clinic. The research, published recently by the journal Science, comes as millions of Americans gain health insurance under the federal healthcare law, many of them through Medicaid.

Health spending growth low for 4th consecutive yearBy Pamela Lewis Dolan For the fourth consecutive year, growth in healthcare spending remained historically low. But the likelihood this trend will continue, and how the Affordable Care Act will impact it, is still in question. From 2009 to 2012, the U.S. saw the slowest growth in healthcare spending since the government started tracking these trends in the 1960s, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. An analysis of the CMS data, published Jan. 6 in the journal Health Affairs, found spending on healthcare grew by only 3.7 percent in 2012 to $2.8 trillion, a slight increase from the 3.6 percent growth found in 2011.

Top 5 healthcare consumer trends for 2014The Vitals BlogThe healthcare industry has never made fast changes. But with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the advent of the empowered online healthcare consumer, there are a number of ways that the system is poised for transformation in 2014. Vitals CEO, Mitch Rothschild, outlines five key changes he predicts healthcare consumers will see in the coming year, which includes the continued growth of urgent care and alternate care centers.

Flu blues: Season could hit business hard this winterCNBCBusinesses soon could be suffering a double whammy of a flu season, with many employees missing work not only because they need to take care of sick kids or parents, but also because they're ailing themselves. The number of reported flu cases nationally began spiking in recent weeks, much like 2012-13's particularly bad flu season, in which workers lost an estimated $8.5 billion in wages, according to government and privately compiled data.